During my high school years, I strongly disliked "Polish Language and Literature" classes. I thought they were boring and couldn't understand why poets and writers overthought and elaborated on even the simplest of things. Naturally, back then, I couldn't even fathom changing my mind. It is, therefore, very surprising to me that I now find myself not only enjoying reading short poems but also writing them, albeit terribly..

How it started

As with most poets, I was trying to make something for a lady of mine that was meaningful, personal and coming from my heart. Years ago, I did make two poems but the feedback about them was... not great. So much so, that I decided to hang up the pen for good. Browsing the internet however, I stumbled upon Haiku (俳句) that I found particularly touching as I've lost my grandparents a few years ago and they are still very much missed by me.

Credit to @Fabulous_Fail

If you are unaware, Haiku is a type of short poetry that follows a 5-7-5 pattern of morae(s) - for english/polish these can be thought of as syllables. To make truly traditional one, there are additional rules such as having one kireji (cutting word) and kigo (seasonal reference). Obviously the one above did not have these, only the pattern itself. Notice as well that it does not need to rhyme.

There is also Tanka (短歌, short poem) which also follows a specific pattern - 5-7-5-7-7. The 5-7-5 is known as kami-no-ku (upper phrase) and 7-7 is shimo-no-ku (lower phrase).

My attempt

Having read quite a few of them and about the history of it, I naively thought to myself "Doesn't seem hard, I think could do that". To set the scene: I was in Italy on a winter skiing trip, having found myself stuck in our apartment due to bad weather. It's in Polish, so the Tanka structure (5-7-5-7-7) is only followed in Polish unfortunately, and not in it's English translation.

Which literal english translation is:

Unfortunately, as you can see, my snoozing-off during classes has reaped its fruit as I incorrectly counted syllables in "A ja trwam w stęsknieniu". I counted 'w' as a separate syllable, which brought the total to 7 (correct for Tanka). However, in Polish pronunciation, the preposition 'w' blends into the next word, meaning I actually only wrote 6 syllables. Skill issue..

The poem itself was sent like that before I caught on my mistake, so it is now frozen in time like so, with mistake in it. From things that went well - it does have an upper phrase that sets the scene with seasonal reference and a lower phrase that comes out of the heart with a slightly melancholic yet hopeful tone - something I've been told is characteristic for Polish romantic poetry. The two are blended with a hook that contrasts warm and soft touch with cold hard ice.

Funnily enough, I gave Gemini Pro the task to count the syllables and it also counted them incorrectly... Ah, AI will be a doom of mine at some point..

And no, AI was not used in making this. That would defeat the whole idea of writing it from the heart.

Other fun short poems

I've figured I will leave you out with some of the poems I found while doing a little rabbit hole jump. First one is comedy that combines my love for computers:

All of the listed poems so far have been written by amateur writers. Just to showcase the difference, here are two written by the pros:

"Summer Moon" Tanka from book 'Poems in Exile' (1923) by Jun Fujita

I think we can both agree that the image this poem draws is very vivid. I can almost hear the sound of the rain when reading that. Remarkable.

Unfortunately I do not know the title of this one, but I do know the author - American 19th century poet Emily Dickinson.

So use your time wisely ;)